[News Brief] Apr 22, morning | U.S. Senate to Vote on Bitcoin and Crypto Market Structure Bill

U.S. Senator Cynthia Lummis said the Senate Banking Committee will officially vote next week on a Bitcoin and cryptocurrency market structure bill.

According to Bitcoin Magazine, Lummis said, “Let’s pass the CLARITY Act in the Banking Committee on Thursday.” The bill is designed to organize the U.S. regulatory framework and jurisdiction for the domestic cryptocurrency market.

BlackRock is seeking to launch two tokenized money market funds for investors holding cash in the form of stablecoins, Odaily reported, citing Bloomberg.

BlackRock has filed documents to introduce a digital share class for its approximately $6.1 billion BlackRock Select Treasury Based Liquidity Fund.

The fund mainly invests in cash, U.S. Treasuries, and securities with remaining maturities of 93 days or less. The tokenized security will be offered on the Ethereum blockchain and will operate alongside the traditional share class.

Wasabi Protocol disclosed an update on a security incident, saying the attacker exploited a Spring Boot Actuator configuration vulnerability in its AWS infrastructure to steal private keys for EVM smart contracts.

According to Odaily, about $4.8 million in user funds and about $900,000 from the protocol treasury were stolen in the attack. The breach began when the Actuator heap dump on a public analytics server was not properly password-protected, allowing the attacker to gain access to credentials for other servers and control over smart contract private keys.

The damage was limited to certain vaults deployed on EVM networks including Ethereum, Base, Blast, and Berachain. The Solana deployment and Prop AMM were not affected, according to Wasabi Protocol.

Wasabi Protocol said a final compensation plan for users has not yet been determined, but compensating affected users remains its top priority. It added that future investigation updates will be announced through its Discord community.

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) are strengthening coordination over the regulatory scope of prediction markets, Odaily reported.

According to Fox reporter Charles Gasparino, both agencies have also maintained aligned positions in a recent investigation into unusual trading related to the Iran conflict.

Gasparino said prediction markets are generally considered to fall under CFTC jurisdiction, but if the related prediction contracts are legally classified as securities, the SEC may also become deeply involved.

He added that beyond currently public cases, regulators may pursue additional enforcement actions against prediction markets in the future.

According to Odaily, Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey said at a Bank of England-hosted conference on financial imbalances that international regulatory standards must be established for stablecoins to become part of the global payments system.

Bailey warned that some U.S. stablecoins may not be quickly redeemable for dollars during times of crisis, highlighting liquidity risks. He said that if stablecoins become widely used in cross-border payments, funds could rush into jurisdictions with stricter redemption obligations, increasing the risk of bank runs.

The remarks underscore a divergence in regulatory approach from the Trump administration’s policy direction, which seeks to expand the use of stablecoins.

A federal court in Manhattan approved a plan to transfer about $71 million worth of Ethereum frozen on Arbitrum in connection with a North Korea-linked hacking case to an Aave LLC wallet.

According to Odaily, Judge Margaret Garnett approved Aave’s asset recovery plan while preserving the legal claims of plaintiffs who are victims of terrorism. Following the ruling, the previous freeze notice against the Arbitrum DAO was revised, and any transfer execution must go through an Arbitrum on-chain governance vote.

According to Whale Alert, 30,000 ETH was transferred from an unknown wallet to Binance.

The transfer was worth about $69.37 million. Exchange inflows are generally interpreted as a sign of possible selling pressure, though no actual sale has been confirmed.

PANews reported on the 9th, citing Onchain Lens, that early Bitcoin holder Garrett Jin deposited 108,169 ETH to Binance.

The amount is worth about $250 million at current prices. Large deposits to exchanges are generally associated with potential selling activity and are seen as a short-term price overhang.

Odaily, citing Arkham data, reported that a whale wallet labeled Hyperunit transferred $180 million worth of ETH to Binance.

Large transfers to exchanges are commonly interpreted as signaling potential sell pressure. However, the specific purpose of the transfer has not been confirmed.

Santiment said Ethereum-based USDT saw net outflows of $1.29 billion from exchanges last Friday.

It marked the largest such outflow in about three months, with whether short-term buying capital returns to exchanges seen as a key variable for market direction.

According to PANews, Santiment said on X that the outflows may reflect institutions or whale investors moving funds to self-custody wallets, DeFi protocols, or over-the-counter trading platforms. It added that this does not necessarily mean the capital has fully left the crypto ecosystem.

Santiment also referenced a previous $3.72 billion outflow on Feb. 9, after which Bitcoin showed weakness for about two weeks. It said that if USDT flows back onto exchanges in the coming days, it could signal a resumption of crypto buying activity.